Sunday, December 28, 2014

The coming year is likely to be as full of surprises in the field of energy as 2014 was. We just don't know which surprises! I am not predicting that any of the following will happen, and they will be surprises to most people if they do. But, I think there is an outside chance that one or more will occur, and this would move markets and policy debates in unexpected directions.

1. U.S. crude oil and natural gas production decline for the first time since 2008 and 2005, respectively. The colossal markdown in world oil prices has belatedly been followed by a slightly smaller, but nevertheless dramatic markdown in U.S. natural gas prices. The drop in prices has already resulted in announcements from U.S. drillers that they will curtail their drilling operations significantly next year.

But drilling that is already contracted for will likely go forward, and wells waiting for completion will be completed. It can be costly to pull out of drilling contracts. And, failing to complete already successful wells and bring them into production is downright foolish since the costs incurred in drilling the wells including future debt payments remain. In those circumstances, some revenue at lower prices is preferable to no revenue at all.

Having said all that, scaled-down drilling plans when combined with what's left in drillers' immediate inventory both to drill and complete may not be enough to overcome the prodigious production decline rates from existing wells in deep shale deposits of oil and gas which have provided almost all the recent growth in U.S. production. The decline rates are 60 to 91 over three years for tight oil plays and 74 to 88 percent over three years for shale natural gas plays.

If low prices continue for a second year, the cheers for "Saudi" America will disappear. It was never to be anyway. What America has left is high-cost oil and natural gas. And, even at high prices both were likely to peak and decline in the next 5 years. Now, low prices may bring peak production rates in the coming year for both U.S. oil and natural gas--peaks that may never be seen again.

2. World crude oil closes below $30 per barrel. I think that such a price would only last a short time unless the world is in the throes of the next Great Depression. But since OPEC has reaffirmed that it will continue to pump oil at current rates until non-OPEC production declines, look for this game of chicken to create increasing inventories of oil worldwide for several months. The underlying cause for rising oil inventories is slowing economic growth in much of Asia, especially China, and economic stagnation in Europe and Japan. Any pickup in worldwide growth would send oil significantly higher than where it is today as oil demand increases.

3. Developments in solar thermal energy show that it can solve the storage problem for electricity from renewable energy. The difficulty with renewable energy supplying electricity is that electricity is very expensive to store (and so we do very little of this). Storage is important because renewable energy production comes when the wind blows and the sun shines, but not always when we need it. A breakthrough in solar thermal may be in the offing that would overcome previous limits on temperatures generated by solar thermal capture devices and make it possible to store heat cheaply enough to run solar electric generating plants around the clock at high output.

4. A climate agreement in Paris calls for binding greenhouse gas emissions limits. Expectations are exceedingly low for next summer's international climate conference to be held in Paris. The aim is to agree on binding limits for carbon emissions for the world's nations. Few people think that will happen no matter what the urgency of the matter.

But we cannot know what climate events might occur between now and the Paris conference that would change the outcome. It would have to be big, on the order of an ice shelf plopping into the ocean and raising sea-level enough to notice. Nevertheless, I would say that such a disturbing event becomes more likely with time and might be necessary to move the world's nations to a binding emissions agreement.

Even some progress in the direction of a binding agreement will have the world's energy analysts talking about stranded assets, a reference to the oil, natural gas and coal that would have to be left in the ground in order to avoid breaching agreed limits on carbon emissions. That would have significant consequences for the companies whose work is extracting and refining hydrocarbons.

5. Oil prices reach $100 per barrel before December 31, 2015. This is the other extreme from surprise No. 3. Almost all analysts expect oil prices to remain low, and many believe we are now entering a new era of cheap oil. (I, of course, don't buy it.) An earlier and more dramatic drop in production than anticipated and a greater rise in demand than anticipated could easily bring prices back above $100. I think this is more likely to happen later in 2016. But the timetable for a return to prices above $100 could be accelerated by many factors not now apparent.

I regard none of these events as likely which is why they would be surprises. But even one of these surprises would result in large financial gains or losses for many. And, either of two of them--binding greenhouse gas emissions limits or a breakthrough in renewable energy storage--would have giant consequences for the entire world.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Regular readers know I often write about energy, and while this piece may not at first blush seem like an energy story, you'll soon see that the quest for an ample supply of energy is, in fact, at the heart of human greed.

Greed is often said to be a central cause of our ecological and social ills. It motivates excessive and injurious exploitation of the planet and thus threatens the existence of many species including humans themselves. It leads to excessive economic inequality and the social ills presumed to be associated with that inequality. And, of course, greed is regarded as not just bad for the biosphere or society; it's bad for the soul and therefore earns a place on the list of the seven deadly sins.

Many people are convinced that greed is learned and therefore can be unlearned or not taught in the first place. Others believe that greed is simply an inherent evil in humans, part of the human condition.

Someone once asked oil tycoon J. Paul Getty how much money is enough. He replied, "A little bit more." The fictional financier Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film "Wall Street"--who is best known for the phrase "greed is good"--gives a different answer: "It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero-sum game – somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred – from one perception to another." Finally, I offer the words of Noah Cross, a character played by John Huston in the film "Chinatown." Cross is asked what else such an enormously wealthy man as himself could possibly want, and he replies: "The future."

In these three quotes we have the essence of Howard Odum's Maximum Power Principle. (See, I told you we would come back to energy!) Essentially, what Odum observed is that living systems--humans, for example--seek to maximize their energy gain. Now, in modern society, the way humans primarily gain access to energy is through money. Money, it turns out, is merely what allows us to command energy--in the form of humans, machines, or even animal power--to do what we want it to do. Money is essentially a method of assigning "energy credits." And, energy, of course, can used be to make us a product, render us a service, or provide either of these to someone else as a gift or in fulfillment of a contractual obligation. Without energy, nothing gets done.

Many people believe as J. Paul Getty did--that one can never have enough money (read: energy). But, Gordon Gekko enunciates an important implication of the Maximum Power Principle: People will compete with one another for the available energy supplies (in the form of money or other types of wealth). And, Noah Cross, in ways both literal and figurative, shows us just how far people are willing to go to have an impact on the future, to insure the continuation of their genetic line and their vision for their community.

Despite our modern pretensions, we humans are still all part of an evolutionary process that pushes us to compete for survival and for the propagation of our genes. Access to energy (and all of its products and services) confers advantages in this contest. And, energy in the form of wealth provides a special intangible advantage: increased social status which can be an asset when pursuing sexual partners. Wealth attracts members of the opposite sex because it implies the ability to care for a spouse and for any offspring and provide many advantages such as ongoing access to better health care, nutrition, education and social opportunities.

Thus, Aristotle's vision seems contrary to the Maximum Power Principle. Why would anyone intentionally limit the amount of energy available to oneself? There is probably a theoretical limit to the amount of energy that might be useful to any one human being. The entire energy output of the Sun, for instance, would likely be beyond the capability of one human to manage and use to gain advantage. But, the world has many billionaires who find no end of ways to spend their accumulated energy credits and who often populate the world with many heirs from many marriages.

What possible force could counteract the drive for dominance and self-propagation and thus the desire to maximize one's energy gain to facilitate that dominance? There is research which suggests that beyond a certain point of energy consumption (around 100 gigajoules per year per person), quality of life measures for modern societies barely improve. But that's for society as a whole, not the individual.

As it turns out, we humans have a long history of contemplative traditions, both religious and secular, traditions that preach simplicity and often poverty as a way of life. These traditions eschew worldly goods or at least maintain that each person should have just what he or she needs for a good life and no more. How do such traditions square with the Maximum Power Principle? The people who adhere to these traditions, after all, voluntarily and consciously choose to consume less energy than they might otherwise be able to.

There may be a clue in that. Our default instinctual response is to seek advantage over others. Yes, we may cooperate where that seems the wisest course or where it is apparent that we cannot dominate the situation. But, even within one group or nation, there is simultaneous cooperation AND competition. But, we do not ordinarily cooperate to REDUCE our access to resources.

So, we might say that such voluntary and conscious choosing is the next step in evolution. But, how can it be? Such a way of life has been a feature of many civilizations throughout history. It is already a feature of evolution in that those who choose such a way of life have not died out. It may be that such a path is an adaptive response which optimizes human survival over time. This is merely speculation. But it would explain why self-abnegation is so persistent across cultures and across time. When humans need the gene that tells them to reduce their resource use, it is there.

But there is another claim made for the simple life, for a life which seeks only what is sufficient to thrive rather than to dominate. Quite often those following this path say they are happier than they were when following the path of continual acquisition of wealth and status. That claim, however, would seem to make millions of years of human evolutionary development appear pathological--unless you realize that natural selection optimizes life for survival and propagation, not happiness. Therefore, our default behaviors are tuned to help us survive and pass on our genes, not necessarily bring us contentment (as is evidenced, in part, by the modern divorce rate).

That is not to say that there isn't some happiness in mere survival and certainly some in the process of creating and rearing new life. But, this is not the kind of happiness that those preaching simplicity mean. They mean an enduring, deeply felt and persistent sense of satisfaction in an entire way of life.

A friend who used to serve very wealthy clients for a Wall Street brokerage firm once remarked that even as clients doubled or tripled their wealth, they seemed no happier. Such is the drive for dominance that many people continually seek invidious comparisons with others. Even though such comparisons may bring about enhanced social status, they do not seem to result in any deeper contentment.

Whether that part of us which allows us to find happiness with less, which allows us to loosen the chains of our drive for dominance and replace them with cords that bind us to others for mutual benefit--whether such an outlook will be awakened among more than a small sliver of the population is an open question. The evidence is not promising. The ruthless tend to get ahead and are often held up as examples of how to live.

But the story isn't over. With the challenges that humans now face in climate change, resource depletion, soil degradation, water scarcity and myriad other issues impinging on human survival--all of which have their origins in excessive energy use--we may find that the cooperative and abstemious strains within us may be called to the fore. Or we may find that these problems simply lead to a Hobbesian war of all against all.

So, the question is: Do we--meaning the human species as a whole--have any choice in the matter? Or are we as a species destined to live by the Maximum Power Principle to its seemingly inevitable and calamitous conclusion--a story in which the drive for maximum energy gain is no longer adaptive, but rather dangerous to the continued existence of humankind?

Our actions will be our answer.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

As a consumer of oil, you may regard recent sharp declines in the world oil price as a blessing. But...

If you work in the oil industry, you will not.

If you work in the renewable energy industry, you will not.

If you work in the energy efficiency business, you will not.

If you work to address climate change, you will not.

If you have investments in the oil industry (and nearly everyone does through pensions or 401k plans), you will not.

If you live in a country that exports a lot of oil (not just Saudi Arabia, but Mexico, Canada and Norway, too), you will not.

The declining price of oil is supposed to have a balanced ledger of winners and losers. But we may be on our way to finding out that in the long run we will have a much larger list of losers than winners.

And, the list will lengthen if the price continues to fall, and especially if it stays down for a long time. (Low prices are not necessarily an indication of future abundance. Remember that oil reached $35 a barrel at the end of 2008 before returning to record average daily prices in 2011, 2012 and 2013.)

Now here is something to contemplate. Is the price of oil falling because we can no longer afford it? This is not an idle question. Record high average daily prices for oil in the last three years have been an unrecognized cause of sluggish overall worldwide economic growth. That subpar growth appears to be exhausting itself now, particularly in Asia and Europe. In dampening growth, high oil prices sewed the seeds of their own demise by ultimately dampening demand.

But, low oil prices will make it even harder to secure future oil supplies. The oil industry was already cutting back its exploration budgets before the price plunge. The industry said that there were not enough profitable prospects available even at $100 per barrel. What happens to industry exploration and development budgets with oil prices now around $60? Without exploration there can be no new production; and without new production, oil supply falls automatically.

Now, exploration and development are not being cut to zero. But they are being cut substantially. And, as with any mineral exploration, there is no guarantee of success--even less so with cutbacks. With existing oil production worldwide declining around 4 to 5 percent per year, the industry already had a huge task keeping production growth just barely positive. Now, that will be almost impossible if oil prices remain low.

What that means is supply will likely stagnate or even shrink. Barring a deep and prolonged economic slump now (which would send oil prices even lower and keep them there for some time), as demand for oil reignites, we're setting up for another big price spike later that might then send the economy off a cliff into a serious slide.

For now, those in the renewable energy business are finding it more difficult to be competitive with lower-cost oil. Energy efficiency business owners must tell their clients that many efficiency measures will have a longer payback period while oil prices stay low. Both these outcomes send us in the wrong direction.

And, there is climate change. When petroleum products are cheap, there is less incentive to use them parsimoniously. All things being equal, that means more oil products are burned which produces additional greenhouse gas emissions.

Now, regarding the financial consequences of low oil prices, one could say, "Well, if you've chosen to work in the oil industry or if you've staked your whole country's future on the price of oil, then that's just your tough luck. Some of the wealth that flowed to you is now going to start to flow back to me."

And therein lies a problem. If that money flows too quickly away from the oil industry and the major oil exporters, it could create a financial cascade in the debt markets, in the world's stock markets, in the currency markets--oh wait, it already has. The question is how far will these disruptions carry, and will they cascade in a way that leads to a recession or depression.

One can be passive in the face of such events. But, a smarter plan would be to implement something along the lines I proposed last week--an oil tariff that keeps prices high and so keeps renewables and energy efficiency attractive. In fact, a system that keeps all carbon-based fuels high-priced would do more to move the world toward a sustainable energy system than all the current renewable energy subsidies combined. And, it would prevent the kind of price manipulation now engaged in by OPEC from wrecking havoc on any plan to move toward a renewable energy society.

It is just such disruptions in the fossil fuel markets that make us believe things that aren't good for us--that we can somehow burn cheap oil and forget about climate change. That cheap oil will go on forever. That cheap oil is a sign that the marketplace solves all problems (rather than creating new problems that it can't solve by itself).

We can celebrate lower gasoline, diesel and heating oil prices now. But like any overindulgence, we will pay for it later. When a pusher offers a junkie a discount on his drugs, we shouldn't take it as an act of kindness.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, December 07, 2014

OPEC has declared war on American oil production with the intention of making the country more dependent on imported oil and on oil in general. By refusing to cut production in the face of weakening world demand, the cartel has allowed oil prices to fall more than 35 percent since mid-year to levels that are likely to make most new oil production in America's large shale deposits unprofitable. That could not only halt growth in U.S. production, but may lead to an actual drop because production from already operating deep shale wells declines about 40 percent per year.

The United States could chose to fight back and possibly win this war with OPEC by employing one simple, big move. But, I can confidently predict that the country will not do it. Why? Because it involves a tax, a tariff actually.

The easiest way to achieve the floor price, of course, would be to slap a sliding tariff on imported oil. The formula for such a tariff would be simple: The floor price minus the price of imported oil unless the price of imported oil equals or exceeds the floor price, in which case, the tariff would be zero. Imposing a tariff that keeps U.S. oil prices above, say, $100 per barrel would only return the domestic price of gasoline and other refined products to their level of just six months ago. Presumably, that wouldn't be much of a shock to consumers.

I suspect, however, that Kissinger's proposal would be about as popular today as it was when he proposed it. Back in 1975, it never got off the ground. This was, in part, because the Europeans and the Japanese objected that, unlike Americans, the two had few oil resources that might be exploited as a result of such a price guarantee. In the end, America was unwilling to go it alone.

Ironically, since that time the Europeans and the Japanese have opted for high taxes on energy including motor fuels--taxes that have had the effect of achieving Kissinger's objectives two and three, alternative energy development and energy conservation. Americans have maintained low energy taxes which in part are responsible for the fact that the average American uses twice as much energy as the average European.

An oil tariff could actually garner considerable well-heeled, heavyweight political support from two unlikely bedfellows: the domestic oil industry and the renewable energy industry. The domestic oil industry, of course, would love a tariff because it protects the industry's high-cost deep shale deposits from the competition of cheap OPEC oil imports. The cartel's price suppression strategy specifically targets the high-cost hydraulic fracturing or fracking in deep shale deposits that has been largely responsible for the rise in U.S. oil production from a low of 5 million barrels per day (mbpd) in 2008 to 8.8 mbpd as of September this year.

The renewable energy industry might well join the oil industry in supporting such a tariff because a high oil price makes alternatives to oil more attractive.

But individual, commercial and industrial consumers of oil and oil products would object to higher prices. Industrial users, in particular, would complain that they must compete against other industries abroad that pay less for their petroleum products (though this might not be true in such high-tax places as Europe).

Another group would almost certainly object to such a tariff: those concerned about the environmental damage associated with fracking for oil. High domestic oil prices would only encourage exploitation of more deep shale deposits across America, and that would necessarily result in broader environmental effects. These activists might well argue that a hefty carbon tax which would tax oil and all other carbon energy sources would be better targeted for reducing energy consumption and spurring alternatives to fossil fuels--with no need for an import tariff that encourages domestic oil production. But, recent history suggests that such a tax remains politically implausible. So, the question is: If the tariff were to be adopted, would the support provided to alternative energy be an acceptable trade for the damage done to the landscape?

Of course, anti-fracking activists will retort that they'd like to ban fracking altogether while the country speeds up deployment of alternative energy. But, the chances for such a ban, either federal or state, while not zero, are probably smaller than the chances that the United States will enact an oil tariff.

The beauty of the oil tariff is threefold: 1) The mechanism for collecting it is already in place. 2) It doesn't mandate exactly how people should go about reducing their petroleum use; it only incentivizes them to do so. And, 3) it makes significant headway in addressing one of America's greatest vulnerabilities, our dependence on foreign oil and on fossil fuels in general. We'd get all this with one tax.

Getting agreement for an oil tariff would be a grand bargain of the first order. It would require a sort of Alice-through-the-looking-glass transformation across the United States. Oil industry captains--who tend to have libertarian leanings and who have consistently and publicly denounced excessive government regulation and taxes--would have to champion a new tax. The renewable energy industry would have to embrace its new partnership with the oil industry.

Environmentalists might have to be appeased with new, much stricter environmental standards for fracking and with assurances that enforcement would be vigorous. (The oil industry would look foolish opposing such standards when it is being given such a big financial gift--one that would enable it easily to pay for better environmental practices.) And, the oil-consuming industries and the public would have to take the attitude that the tariff is the right thing for the country because it will force all of us to do the right thing: conserve and seek alternatives to oil and oil products.

The most likely course, however, is that no such tariff will be adopted. As a result America's oil industry will slip into a slump. The country will become more dependent on imports and oil in general. And, when oil prices rise again--as they surely will--the industry will go right back to fracking America's deep shale deposits at full speed without any additional environmental safeguards.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

To paraphrase Mark Twain: Rumors of OPEC's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Breathless coverage of the rise in U.S. oil production in the last few years has led some to declare that OPEC's power in the oil market is now becoming irrelevant as America supposedly moves toward energy independence. This coverage, however, has obscured the fact that almost all of that rise in production has come in the form of high-cost tight oil found in deep shale deposits.

One of the things a cartel can do--if it controls enough market share--is destroy competition through a price war. Somehow the public and policymakers got fixated on OPEC's ability to restrict production in order to raise prices and forgot about its ability to flood the world market with oil and not just stabilize prices, but cause them to crash.

The industry claims that most U.S. tight oil plays are profitable below $80. And, drillers say they are driving production costs down and can weather lower prices. OPEC's move will now test these statements. The current American benchmark futures price of about $65 per barrel suggests that OPEC took into consideration the breakeven points cited in the linked article above.

Whatever the precise number, in practical terms Saudi Arabia is the Walmart of world oil markets, able to affect a price drop at the turn of a few valves or through failure to turn them off in the face of falling demand. In this case, the country did not turn off any of its production in response to weakening world demand. Nor did other OPEC members. Having twisted enough arms in the most recent OPEC meeting, Saudi Arabia got its way with a commitment from OPEC members to hold production steady, thus putting further pressure on the oil price in the wake of falling demand. Both of the world's major oil futures contracts fell by 7 percent after the announcement.

The effect has been far greater in North Dakota than the ongoing drop in futures prices would indicate. That state, which is at the center of the U.S. tight oil boom, is far from refineries and pipelines. Oil producers use expensive rail transport to carry their oil to market. The result is that North Dakota producers face a significant discount at the wellhead. For October the average discount was $15.40 per barrel below the U.S. benchmark Light Sweet Crude futures price. If we take that discount and apply it to last Friday's close, that would imply that North Dakota producers are now receiving $50.59 per barrel--a level unlikely to be profitable except for the most prolific wells.

If prices remain that low, OPEC will almost certainly achieve its objective of preventing significant investment in new production in the state. Other major tight oil production is centered in Texas, closer to pipelines and thus not subject to discounts of this magnitude. Still, with oil around $65 per barrel, it is likely that production would rise very little in Texas in the tight oil plays, if at all. Deposits outside the "sweet spots" currently being drilled are almost certainly uneconomic at such prices.

At these new low oil prices, it's unlikely that many investors will be willing to put more money to work in the tight oil deposits of America. That will make it hard for drillers to fund new drilling since they have insufficient cash being generated by current operations. In addition, with oil prices significantly down, many independent drillers may have a hard time paying off their debts, let alone paying the costs of drilling a large number of new wells. And with yearly field production decline rates in tight oil areas of about 40 percent--which simply means that no drilling for a year would result in a 40 percent decline in production--drillers have to drill a large number of new wells just to make up for production declines in existing wells BEFORE they get to new wells that actually add to the overall rate of production. A significant drop in the rate of drilling in U.S. tight oil plays could actually result in lower overall U.S. oil production.

Lower oil prices tend to increase demand for oil as people can afford more energy for consumer and industrial purposes. So, OPEC is fully expecting demand and then prices to rise over the medium term--but not, it hopes, soon enough to bail out tight oil drillers.

All things being equal, lower oil prices tend to increase economic activity and may help Europe and Asia avoid a recession by lowering energy costs significantly. But all things may not be equal since at least one analyst believes the current rout in the oil markets could lead to cascading defaults that start with the junk bond debt of oil drillers and move through banks heavily invested in oil company debt. That, in turn, could cause a general stock market collapse. Thus, instead of promoting economic growth, low oil prices would be the cause of the next stock market crash and the next worldwide recession.

Such a recession would likely sink oil prices further, putting extreme financial pressure on OPEC members less well-endowed than Saudi Arabia. And, it would upset OPEC's timetable for a return to higher prices and profits--delaying it perhaps for years. It would also put another nail in the coffin of the American oil independence story--one that even the ever-optimistic U.S. Department of Energy never believed at high prices--by moving many of the U.S. oil plays previously considered viable into the uneconomic category.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

The possibility of a new Cold War between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies brings with it the spectre of nuclear war, an all-but-forgotten threat since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Even as the number of nuclear weapons has declined through mutually agreed reductions from a worldwide total of 68,000 in 1985 to an estimated 16,400 today, the destructive force of such weapons is so great that if the remaining ones were used, they might well spell the end of human civilization as we know it.

One indication of the rising threat is what NATO calls an "unusual" increase in Russian military flights over Europe involving so-called Bear bombers, long-range Russian counterparts to American B-52 bombers. But, of course, U.S. and Russian nuclear forces have been operating all along since the end of the Cold War even as their arsenals were being slashed. The threat of nuclear war was always there even if tensions were falling between Russia and the United States.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin making a premature exit from the G-20 summit as world leaders began to discuss Russian complicity in a rebellion in eastern Ukraine, it seems likely that tensions between Western powers and Russia will escalate from here.

If they do, the threat of nuclear war will rise with them--now with several more permutations than before since the original five nuclear powers--the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom--have now been joined by Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. All of these latter entrants into the nuclear club face obvious regional tensions that could lead to a nuclear exchange, an exchange that might draw the original nuclear powers into the regional conflict.

Once again there will be talk of MAD or mutually assured destruction, an apt acronym for a doctrine that assumes that the fear of nuclear annihilation (from a retaliatory attack) has prevented and will prevent the first-strike use of nuclear weapons by both the Americans and Russians (and everyone else).

And, with new nuclear players on the stage, there will undoubtedly be talk of "limited" nuclear war. There was a serious discussion about such a limited war between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. Proponents of a first-strike attack claimed that the United States could win such an exchange (whatever that means).

The problem with that thinking is that it fails to take into account just how interconnected the various parts of our global system are now. Even back in 1954, Harrison Brown, author of "The Challenge of Man's Future," put it this way as he thought about such an outcome:

Once a machine civilization has been in operation for some time, the lives of the people within the society become dependent upon the machines. The vast interlocking industrial network provides them with food, vaccines, antibiotics, and hospitals. If such a population should suddenly be deprived of a substantial fraction of its machines and forced to revert to an agrarian society, the resultant havoc would be enormous. Indeed, it is quite possible that a society within which there has been little natural selection based upon disease resistance for several generations, a society in which the people have come to depend increasingly upon surgery for repairs during early life and where there is little natural selection operating among women, relative to the ability to bear children--such a society could easily become extinct in a relatively short time following the disruption of the machine network.

The modern global economy is like a shark; it has to move forward or it dies. The widespread adoption of just-in-time inventory has resulted in acute vulnerabilities from even very short disruptions. The modern global machine now requires continuous inputs of energy and materials and continuously operating global freight transportation or it starts to break down.

Even partial destruction, say, 15 to 20 percent of the industrial plant in the world, might be enough to make the global economic system inoperable. Because self-sufficiency has become a dirty word in our free-trade crazed political culture, countries have become so specialized in their manufacturing that it might not be possible to reproduce the necessary facilities nearer home quickly enough to prevent a global systemic breakdown. We would not simply revert back to the level of economic activity of, say, the 1950s. Instead, we could experience a total breakdown that leads to our inability to restart modern technical civilization after even a limited nuclear war.

One of the most troublesome effects of a nuclear attack is that it can render some or all of the electrical infrastructure inoperable through something called EMP or electromagnetic pulse. This pulse is discharged by every atomic explosion and can cripple transformers throughout the electrical grid. And, just one or two bombs exploded at high altitude could affect the entire United States or Europe; therefore, an EMP-focused nuclear attack is within the reach of the smallest nuclear power.

There is no vast ready supply of transformers to replace damaged ones. New transformers are expensive and require a year and a working electrical infrastructure to make. This is just one of the many loops in our current system that cannot be disengaged without great peril.

Our ability to mine basic minerals is now entirely dependent on an existing industrial infrastructure that can supply machines and undertake chemical processes to extract minerals from the very low grades of ore that remain (since we've already managed to mine all the high-grade stuff). Our ability to grow food depends largely on that same industrial infrastructure which produces machinery, chemicals, and fertilizers all necessary to modern farming and which provides the transportation and processing facilities. Without that infrastructure, the world's farmers could feed only a small portion of those alive today.

And, we should remember that all this could happen unintentionally if the machines which control nuclear military operations malfunction--or if a rogue commander decides on his own that nuclear war has become necessary. If an attack is the result of a mechanical failure, can the side being attacked really be convinced that the attack is a mistake? If the attack is by a rogue commander, would representations by a civilian leader that the commander was not authorized merely be seen as gamesmanship and part of an overall attack plan?

The danger of nuclear war didn't really go away at the end of the last Cold War. It has simply been out of view as other problems took precedence. Now we are once again forced to contemplate it. No matter how remote the possibility of such a war may seem to us, its severity demands our attention--and our efforts to prevent it.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Russia and China have signed two large natural gas deals in the last six months as Russia turns its attention eastward in reaction to sanctions and souring relations with Europe, currently Russia's largest energy export market.

But the move has implications beyond Europe. In the department of everything is connected, U.S. natural gas producers may be seeing their dream of substantial liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports suffer fatal injury because of Russian exports to the Chinese market, a market that was expected to be the largest and most profitable for LNG exporters. Petroleum geologist and consultant Art Berman--who has been consistently skeptical of the viability of U.S. LNG exports--communicated in an email that Russian supply will force the price of LNG delivered to Asia down to between $10 and $11, too low for American LNG exports to be profitable.

Now, let's back up a little. U.S. natural gas producers have been trying to sell the story of an American energy renaissance based on growing domestically produced gas supplies from deep shale deposits--now being exploited through a new form of hydraulic fracturing called high-volume slick-water hydraulic fracturing.

The problem has been that overproduction and low prices--now only a fraction of the $13 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) at the peak in 2008--have undermined the financial stability of the natural gas drillers. Here's why: Natural gas from shale, referred to as shale gas, is generally more expensive to produce than conventional natural gas and will require that natural gas prices go much higher than they are today--from around $4 per mcf almost certainly to over $6 per mcf and perhaps more to pay the costs of bringing that gas out profitably.

But at that price, U.S. LNG is no longer competitive in Europe. And now, because of the Russian-Chinese natural gas pipeline deals, it may no longer be competitive in Asia. Those are the two largest markets for LNG. Without them it is doubtful that the United States will be exporting much LNG--except perhaps at a loss.

Here's the problem: To convert U.S. natural gas to liquefied natural gas, put it on specially built tankers and ship it to Europe or Asia will cost about $6 per mcf. If the price of U.S. natural gas averages around $6 per mcf, the total landed cost of U.S. LNG will be the cost of the gas plus the cost of converting it and shipping it, that is, around $12 per mcf.

The most recent landed prices for LNG to Asia as reported by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission were $10.10 per MMBtu* for China, $10.50 for Korea and $10.50 for Japan. For Europe the numbers are even more sobering: $9.15 for Spain, $6.60 for the United Kingdom, and $6.78 for Belgium. All amounts are U.S. dollars.

These are probably reflective of spot prices rather than long-term contracts, and they are down due to softening energy demand that may be the result of an economic slowdown in Asia and Europe.

But, they give an indication of how difficult it will be for U.S. LNG to compete on the world market. LNG prices may well improve, but buyers of LNG typically sign cost-plus contracts. In the United States that would be the cost of Henry Hub natural gas (traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange) plus the cost of liquefaction and transportation. With no assurances--and a good deal of evidence to the contrary--that Henry Hub gas will remain at current prices (around $4) for the long term, it's difficult to see how there will be many long-term buyers of U.S. LNG.

Having taken the long way around, let me return to the Russian-Chinese natural gas pipelines and their significance in this drama. Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant that will actually deliver the gas, valued the earlier deal in May at around $10.19 per MMBtu. The latest deal has no announced value, but one analyst believes the Chinese will be asking for around $8 per MMBtu. Even if the Chinese end up accepting a price closer to the previous deal, some 17 percent of the Chinese natural gas supply will be coming from Russia when the pipelines are complete several years from now. And that will likely anchor the price of Chinese LNG imports between $10 and $11 per MMBtu, making the price too low to be reliably profitable for U.S. LNG exporters.

The implication is that today's soft prices for imported LNG to China and the rest of Asia may become the norm in a few years just as America's LNG export terminals are about to become operational. If investors fund these terminals and the Russian-Chinese pipelines get built, there is likely to be some epic capital destruction on the American side of the Pacific.

There are other reasons to be skeptical about America's future as a natural gas exporter. The rosy predictions of the industry and the U.S. Department of Energy for domestic natural gas production from shale may be overblown according to a new report from the same analyst who foresaw the massive downgrade of recoverable oil from California's Monterey Shale. Despite rising domestic natural gas production, the United States remains a net importer of natural gas. Natural gas imports accounted for about 10 percent of U.S. consumption through August of this year.

(Full disclosure: I worked as a paid consultant to help publicize the report mentioned above. But, as longtime readers know, since 2008 I've been skeptical about the wild claims of a long-term U.S. bonanza in oil and natural gas due to shale deposits. This report offers the first comprehensive analysis based on industry data and is produced independent of industry influence or money. Anyone with a stake in the industry or in U.S. energy policy should read it.)

It's possible that some U.S. LNG export projects may move forward in any case. If the buyers for this LNG sign long-term, cost-plus contracts as described above, those buyers will be in for a big surprise when U.S. natural gas prices rise. And those exports will create something of a self-reinforcing feedback loop by raising overall demand which will hoist domestic prices even higher for U.S. natural gas--even more so if there is not as much U.S. production as is currently being projected. If U.S. natural gas production remains at or below the level of domestic consumption, the United States could be faced with the rather bizarre prospect of having to import high-priced LNG from some countries to fill the gap created by LNG export shipments committed to others.

Higher U.S. natural gas prices will be a double-edged sword for those concerned about a cleaner energy future. U.S. natural gas producers and renewable energy companies will simultaneously rejoice if exports raise prices appreciably--producers because their financial fortunes will turn more positive and renewable energy companies because renewable energy will become more competitive with higher priced natural gas. Environmentalists, however, will gasp in horror as profitability rises enough in the shale gas fields to justify ever greater encroachments on the American landscape.

And, U.S. politicians who favor LNG exports may ultimately find themselves pilloried by consumers who must pay those higher prices and environmentalists who abhor the environmental costs--even as those politicians watch the campaign contributions flood in from a grateful shale gas industry.

*MMbtu stands for 1 million British thermal units, a measure of heat content. Mcf, of course, means 1,000 cubic feet. This much natural gas contains almost 1 million Btus--975,610 to be precise. And so, the two measurements are often used interchangeably when comparing price though they are not precisely equivalent.

UPDATED: November 17, 2014 to include information on U.S. natural gas imports.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, November 09, 2014

There were no doubt celebrations last week in the boardrooms of corporations that own patents to the world's genetically engineered crops. Proposals to label foods containing these crops--commonly called GMOs for genetically modified organisms--were defeated soundly in Colorado and barely in Oregon.

That makes for a perfect record in the United States for the GMO purveyors who have beaten back every attempt to mandate labeling of foods containing GMO ingredients. But, I think the celebrations may be premature. For the advocates of labeling have vowed to fight on. They came within a hair's breadth of reaching their goal in Oregon. Who is to say that another round of voter education might not put them over the top?

And, that is the danger for the GMO patent holders. If just one state requires labeling, the food companies will have to make a choice: Special handling and labels for one state or one label for the entire country that also meets that state's standards.* If the first state to implement a GMO labeling requirement is populous, say, California or New York, the decision will be made for the food companies. It won't be sensible to segregate supplies for that state. And, even a less populous state might tip the balance. Some states have passed GMO labeling laws that require enough other states to pass such laws to reach a minimum population threshold of in one case 20 million before the law goes into effect.

Vermont has passed a labeling law that would not require other states to act. But the law is being challenged by the GMO industry in court. If it survives that challenge--which is not at all certain--then its implementation could end up being the one win which the labeling advocates need to create a cascade of labeling requirements elsewhere and the acquiescence of much of the food industry. On the other hand, even if Vermont ultimately prevails in court, the suit could result in lengthy delays in the implementation of the law and mean that the first genuine implementation of GMO food labeling takes place elsewhere.

What complicates matters further for the GMO seed companies is that an increasing number of food processors are opting to exclude GMO ingredients from their products. Many processors proudly display this choice by using the emblem of the Non-GMO Project on their foods (meaning that their GMO-free formulation has actually been verified).

Many others will find ways to eliminate GMO ingredients, especially if they represent a small proportion of the total for any product, just to avoid mandatory labeling.

All this means that as the momentum for labeling continues to build, the opponents of labeling will have fewer and fewer allies. And, if just one state adopts labeling, those allies will shrink appreciably as more and more food processors abandon the GMO bandwagon just to avoid the labeling requirement.

The other problem for the GMO purveyors is that the anti-GMO forces win even when they lose. With each ballot initiative the public gets a months-long education in the debate over the safety, utility and environmental consequences of GMO crops. The public is given broad information about what crops are genetically modified and which foods contain them. In the process, the GMO seed producers must take the position that they don't want the public to know which foods contain GMO ingredients. It's ultimately a losing position. An alert consumer will simply ask, "Why don't they want me to know?" And, that leads to all sorts of suspicions, both justified and unjustified.

One seed company executive summarized the reason perfectly all the way back in 1994: "If you put a label on genetically engineered food, you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it." The obvious question is: "What does he know that we don't?"

Here is the bind that the GMO seed companies are in. They went to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and filed patents that said each of their seeds is unique and therefore deserving of patent protection. The patent office agreed. Then, the companies marched over to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and said that their seeds don't need any special approval because the seeds are "substantially equivalent" to their non-GMO counterparts.

So, if these seeds are "substantially equivalent," then how can they be patented? The answer has to be that they are not equivalent, but unique. FDA scientists balked at the equivalence idea when they first reviewed requests from the companies for a waiver on testing. The scientists recommended that GMO foods be tested for safety just as new drugs are. After all, how can you actually know if something is substantially equivalent until you actually test it? In the end, however, politics overrode science.

Well-meaning biologists tell us not to worry about GMO crops. We've been altering the genes of plants for millennia. That's true, but never in this way and never at this scale. And, that's where the true risk lies. As I've explained before, the hidden risk in GMO crops is not one individual version. It is the repeated and continuing attempts to alter the genes of crops using genes from alien species without knowing the full risks. (You can't discover all of those risks even if you test because of complex interactions with the environment and human physiology that cannot be fully identified or, even if they could be, cannot be reproduced in the laboratory.)

And, we are not moving slowly with GMO crops as a way of testing whether there might be problems. Instead, we are introducing these new seeds at breakneck speeds over vast portions of the Earth. There is the risk, however small, that some seeds will wreck havoc on the Earth's biosphere and/or produce a massive worldwide crop failure and/or damage human health among a broad population. And, the risk of crop failures is multiplied further because most modern agriculture is based on risky monoculture farming.

The apologist might say that such GMO-related risks are very small. But, that apologist cannot say that they are zero. That means we face systemic ruin if something goes wrong. And because GMO crops have the ability to create systemic ruin, the probability that that ruin will occur approaches 100 percent as more and more GMO seed varieties are introduced into the environment and the resulting foodstuffs become part of the human diet.

The only question now is WHEN systemic ruin caused by GMO crops will occur. Next month, next year, 100 years from now? We cannot know. But, the benefits of GMO crops cannot be weighed against their costs, if one of the costs is complete ruin. There are no benefits which justify continually risking complete catastrophe. None.

We may do something systemically risky once and get away with it. But, we cannot get away with it forever. While labeling GMO foods won't solve that problem, it will be one more step in the march toward awareness of the potentially catastrophic risks we are taking with GMO crops.
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UPDATED: November 10, 2014

*Incidentally, that should be the response to the industry's claim that labeling will send prices higher in the state with the labeling requirement. Simple fix: Just use the same label for the entire United States!

**Purely local risks can often be evaluated and are susceptible to risk management approaches. But there is no risk management solution possible for hidden systemic risks for the very reason that they are hidden. Even where local risks are hidden, we can decide to tolerate them precisely because they are local and will not bring down worldwide systems, either natural or man-made.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, November 02, 2014

Back in March 1999 "The Economist" magazine carried a cover photo of two men drenched in oil as they attempted to close a faulty valve that was spraying a huge stream of crude skyward. Over the photo was the headline: "Drowning in oil." At the time it really did seem as if the world were drowning in oil.

But, of course, in retrospect the magazine's cover proved to be the perfect contrarian indicator, for oil had already begun its historic ascent toward $147 per barrel. The 2008 price spike was the culmination of a 10-year bull market that had begun in December 1998.

The swift price decline of Brent Crude from $110 on July 1 to about $85 today has the media buzzing about a glut. But can oil which now trades at eight times its price in 1998--when there really was a glut--be said to be experiencing a glut now?

Certainly, there is more oil available than people are willing to pay $100 per barrel for. While there have been many explanations for the downward move in price, all we can say for sure is that recently there were more sellers than buyers; and so, the price slid as the buyers stepped away, waiting for the price to come down.

But, is this really a glut? In 1998, even what poor people were paying for oil and oil products was relatively affordable, making it easier for them to enjoy the power and comforts that cheap oil and cheap energy in general make available to individuals.

When it comes to total U.S. petroleum consumption, the top 10 weeks for consumption occurred from 2005 to 2007. The most recent consumption number (week ending October 24) remains 2 million barrels per day below the peak reading in 2005. European petroleum consumption remains in a downward trend as well. All this suggests a decline in the standard of living for most Americans and Europeans, at least, when it comes to oil and its benefits. (One colleague of mine now speaks of peak benefits from oil rather than peak oil.)

Yes, the price drop has only just occurred, and, of course, we can't expect that it will have an immediate affect on consumption. But, increased consumption would likely take the oil markets back above $100 per barrel since small changes in supply and demand tend to move the oil price sharply. At the $100 level no one would be calling the situation a glut.

The oil industry has been using the term "abundance" for years as a public relations ploy to prevent people from realizing that oil is neither cheap nor abundant anymore. But the word "glut" has produced night terrors in the minds of oil executives. "Glut" implies that investors should stay away from a market that cannot make them any money. "Abundance" is okay for industry television ads aimed at lulling the public and policymakers to sleep. But, "glut" is bad for business.

Ironically, the swoon in oil prices could easily lead to renewed price spikes as the price falls below the cost of producing the most expensive barrels of oil. Under such conditions, the industry will stop producing these barrels and supply will decline--leading to another price spike when demand picks up.

It turns out that between consumers who can't afford to pay higher and higher oil prices and companies which can't afford to produce the extra oil we'd like at lower prices, we are stuck in an ever-shrinking no man's land, a price band really--one that will eventually disappear as the average cost of producing the extra barrel of oil the world desires goes beyond what consumers including businesses can and will pay.

That will have us wondering why we allowed ourselves to sleepwalk through the last few years, even as continuing high prices and consumption declines sounded the alarm--one that told us we needed to speed up a transition to a renewable energy economy and reduce our energy use wherever possible instead of falling for talk of "abundance" and "glut."

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

I'm taking a short break. I expect to post again on Sunday, November 2.

Update Oct. 27, 2014:

Here's why I missed posting this week. I've been helping to publicize a new report by the Post Carbon Institute that takes aim at the Energy Department's rosy forecasts for tight oil and shale gas. That report is now available.

(Full disclosure: I was a paid consultant for this publicity campaign. But, as my readers know, I've been saying for several years that the tight oil and shale gas boom would be short-lived. This report offers a broad and detailed analysis that supports that view.)

When the world's business editors sent their reporters canvassing to find out what is behind the recent plunge in the world oil price, they were doing what they do almost every day for every type of market: stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and real estate.

In financial journalism more often it's the price that makes the story rather than the story that makes the price. If a story is about something very surprising which almost no one can know in advance--a real scoop--say, an unexpected outcome in a major court case affecting a company's most profitable patent, then the story will move the price of the company's stock.

But much more often prices move, and then business editors send their reporters to find out why. Usually, a number of financial and industry professionals are asked: Why do you think prices went up/down? Then, the story is written and published.

However, on a daily basis, unless there is a big and obvious story like the one above, the only true answers are these:

There were more buyers than sellers. (UP)
There were more sellers than buyers. (DOWN)

These answers, of course, aren't really news. They are more like axioms.

The answers for the recent swoon in the oil price include:

Oil is purchased in dollars and the dollar has been rising which puts downward pressure on the oil price.

Demand is declining in Asia and Europe which is leaving excess oil on the market driving down the price.

Growing production from the United States is adding to world oil supplies and bringing the price down.

Libyan production has rebounded sharply following the country's recent period of unrest.

Saudi Arabia, the only OPEC producer with significant additional production capacity, is pumping more oil to punish other OPEC members with a low price, a move designed to restore discipline among members so that they will abide by future oil production quotas.

Saudi Arabia is pumping more oil to bring the price down to aid the United States in its diplomatic objectives, pressuring Russia, the world largest oil producer.

Saudi Arabia isn't trying to help the United States; the kingdom is actually trying to hurt the United States and restore the exporter's dominance in the oil market by crushing the U.S. tight oil boom which requires high prices to be profitable.

No, Saudi Arabia is really trying to help the United States in its fight against ISIS by showing its support for the United States and Europe through lowering oil prices and by making the price that ISIS gets for the oil products it now controls lower. The lower price is also harder on Iran which requires high prices to sustain its government revenues.

Saudi Arabia is simply trying to defend its market share in the face of waning demand by continuing to pump oil at current levels and offering discounts to customers.

Of course, the above answers aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. People and countries can have multiple objectives served by the same action. And, some or all of the above assessments could be wrong or at least of very little explanatory value.

Now, I'll weigh in. It seems entirely likely that the Saudis are being opportunistic. Like many oil exporters, they need high oil export revenues to pay for their government expenditures, much of which consists of food and fuel subsidies and social programs designed to keep the public docile. In the face of what looks like declining demand, rather than cut production to maintain prices as they have done in the past, they've decided to maintain their market share worldwide by cutting prices. This has the benefit of making much American tight oil production uneconomic, thus discouraging new drilling.

The Saudis know something very important about the U.S. tight oil drillers. Most of them are independents who are loaded with debt and don't have the financial wherewithal to weather a period of sustained prices below their cost of production. They will quickly reduce their drilling to only those prospects which seem as if they might be profitable at these new lower prices.

That will pave the way for sustained higher world prices later as growth in U.S. oil production comes to a halt. After the damage is done, the Saudis will try to bring the price back up.

It's always possible that the Saudi strategy will fail because what's really happening may be the first stages of a colossal economic and financial crash that will take the world economy into prolonged recession. That would bring the price of oil down to levels not seen in a decade where they might stay for a considerable period.

I'm not predicting that. And, in fact, none of what I've written may have any validity. Even though the Saudis have publicly stated that they are defending their market share, they may not be telling us exactly what their aims are. Saudi acquiescence to lower oil prices may simply be having consequences the Saudis don't intend, but can't avoid.

In truth, the whole issue of oil prices is too complex and too lacking in transparency to be discussed intelligently when it comes to short-term price movements. I am reminded of the tale of the blind men and the elephant of which the last stanza of a poetic version is quoted above.

But, as I say, price makes the story.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

I've been advancing a thesis for several months with friends that World War III is now underway. It's just that it's not the war we thought it would be, that is, a confrontation between major powers with the possibility of a nuclear exchange. Instead, we are getting a set of low-intensity, on-again, off-again conflicts involving non-state actors (ISIS, Ukrainian rebels, Libyan insurgents) with confusing and in some cases nonexistent battle lines and rapidly shifting alliances such as the shift from fighting the Syrian regime to helping it indirectly by fighting ISIS, the regime's new foe.

There is at least one prominent person who seems to agree with me, the Pope. During a visit to a World War I memorial in Italy last month Pope Francis said: "Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction."

In citing many well-known causes for war, he failed to specify the one that seems obvious in this case: the fight over energy resources. It can be no accident that the raging fights in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and the Ukraine all coincide with areas rich in energy resources or for which imported energy resources are at risk. There are other conflicts. But these are the ones that are transfixing the eyes of the world, and these are the ones in which major powers are taking sides and mounting major responses.

In the Ukraine natural gas supplies lurk in the background as rebels (supposedly with Russian help) fight to separate parts of eastern Ukraine from the country. The Russians who hold one of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world have threatened to cut off Ukraine, a large importer, this winter and to curtail supplies to Europe which depends on Russia for about 30 percent of its gas. The threat against Europe is in response to trade sanctions levied on Russia for its alleged role in helping Ukrainian insurgents.

Since summer, a friend and I have been periodically reviewing the World War III game board to assess whether the war is heating up or cooling down. The temperature changes as we have gauged them would look like a sine wave on a graph revealing no definitive trajectory. And, that is just the kind of war that I believe World War III will be--years of indecisive battles, diplomatic ploys, half-hearted engagement by major powers, and new, unexpected conflicts arising in unexpected places.

There are, of course, many other reasons for the conflicts I cite. But I wonder if the major powers would be much engaged in these conflicts if energy supplies were not at stake. So, the resource wars that are developing, especially those relating to energy, are not about direct conquest so much as concern about access to energy resources, or to put it more clearly, concern about possible interruptions to the flow of energy resources.

The low-intensity confrontation in the South China Sea between China and its neighbors, Vietnam and the Philippines, is the most prominent dispute over actual ownership of energy resources rather than the mere flow of those resources. But in the article cited, the Indians, while laying no claim to resources in that area, have said publicly that they are worried that shipping through the South China Sea could be affected if the conflict heats up. Again, we are back to concern about the flow of resources by countries not directly a party to the dispute--yet.

Traditional diplomacy among great powers does not seem to have been effective at resolving these conflicts. And, traditional military operations seem less than effective as well. Kurds in Syria report that U.S. airstrikes against ISIS are not working. This conflict and others like it which are characterized by poorly defined boundaries, shifting participants and unclear goals are confounding major powers and wreaking havoc on countries where these conflicts rage.

One of the most obvious strategies for responding to these conflicts--deep, rapid and permanent reductions in fossil fuel energy consumption through efficiency measures, conservation, and expansion of renewable energy--does not seem to be a prominent part of the policy mix. Such a reduction would not necessarily cause these conflicts to disappear; but they might become far less dangerous since the major powers would be less interested in them and thus less likely to make a miscalculation that would lead to a larger global conflict.

That is the danger that lies in my version of World War III--that it could morph into the kind of global conflict that risks nuclear confrontation between major powers--not because those powers would seek such an obviously insane outcome, but because they might miscalculate and by mistake push the conflict in this terrible direction.

It is not clear how this danger can be avoided given the current trajectory of world energy use. And, it is not clear how to get the world's leaders to focus on the obvious need to reduce not only fossil fuel energy use, but use of all the world's nonrenewable resources in order to forestall conflict.* That humans can have good lives without perpetual growth in the consumption of resources is simply not a possibility in the minds of most world leaders. And that means we should prepare for a very long World War III.

______________________________________________________________

*Such reductions imply the reorganization of our daily lives with an emphasis on conservation as an ingrained habit. They also imply significant changes to our infrastructure. But they do not necessarily mean that we cannot have the essential services that the current system provides while using far less in the way of inputs. The main impediments to moving rapidly down this road are vested interests such as the fossil fuel industry which profit from the current wildly inefficient and wasteful global system. I agree that this is no small obstacle.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

Conceptually, the battle is over. The peakists have won. I was sitting next to an oil executive in New Mexico just recently, and he said to the audience, "Of course, I'm a peakist. We're all peakists. I just don't know when the peak comes." But that represents part of a conceptual victory. And, therefore to the peakists I say, you can declare victory. You are no longer the beleaguered, small minority of voices crying in the wilderness. You are now mainstream. You must learn to take yes for an answer and be gracious in victory.

Some five years ago in Italy, I concluded a talk by saying that like the inhabitants of Pompeii, who ignored the neighboring volcano Vesuvius until it detonated, the world ignores peak oil at its peril.

Naturally, Yergin completely ignored the contradiction between his views and Schlesinger's in accepting the award from the U.S. Department of Energy. But, it is difficult to understand just exactly how Yergin contributed to American energy security. This is the man who throughout the last decade kept predicting a flood of new oil that would send oil prices plummeting. That flood never appeared. Because of his vast influence, Yergin led a chorus of voices telling the United States and the world that there was nothing to worry about, that we didn't need to prepare for an era of constrained oil supplies and high oil prices. And, this is the foresight that has earned him a national award from the Energy Department for aiding our energy security?

In the news piece cited above Yergin behaves as if he foresaw the shale boom in oil and natural gas in the United States. But, back in 2003 in an article for "Foreign Affairs," he advocated a vast expansion of import capacity for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the United States because "[i]n the next five years, it is likely to become a large gas importer; within ten years, it will overtake Japan as the world's largest." I'm not sure how this gem would have helped U.S. energy security either. To show that it was taken seriously, the Congressional Research Service in a report to Congress cited Yergin's article as evidence of the need to expand U.S. LNG import capacity.

So, on oil Yergin got it wrong, way wrong. On natural gas he got it wrong, 180 degrees wrong if we take his current position as a guide. Today, Yergin is touting the need to prepare to EXPORT U.S. natural gas to the rest of the world. This is no surprise since it is the position of his clients in the gas industry who would benefit from the higher prices available on the world market for gas. But, it seems quite obvious that exporting U.S.-produced natural gas would detract from, not enhance American energy security, a fact that is apparently lost on the Energy Department.

When oil was vaulting toward its highest price ever in mid-2008, Yergin felt he had to say something, and what he wrote for the "Financial Times" was essentially an explanation of why he believed he had so badly botched his previous calls. Suddenly, he was advocating energy efficiency and biofuels. He foresaw oil losing some of its dominance as transportation fuel. He also did an about-face on oil prices and for the very first time in the decade forecast RISING oil prices.

What we see then is a man who tries to save face when events show him to be embarrassingly wrong and who shills for the industry he represents the rest of the time. But all of the time the media and public treat him as if he were a disinterested party, only concerned about national and international well-being, an independent analyst who is in thrall to no one.

However, Yergin's company, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (later acquired by IHS, Inc.), has always had major oil companies as clients. Even so, pronouncements from Yergin are not worthless. Rather, they should be viewed as a barometer of thinking in the oil industry. And, anything Yergin says which seems contrary to or, at least, beyond the interests of that industry is meant to maintain his image as an independent analyst, an image that was never consistent with his actual consulting work.

Daniel Yergin is a talented storyteller. He won the Pulitzer for his history of oil entitled The Prize. At any given moment, however, it's important to understand what story he is telling and on whose behalf he is telling it. That he is little concerned with anyone's security except that of his clients is obvious from his previous public statements and his long career of carrying water for the oil and gas industry.

Given all this, perhaps the most puzzling thing about Daniel Yergin is his mystifying ability to inflict amnesia on people regarding his previous pronouncements and predictions. It is this ability, it seems, that has made it possible for him to thrive as a consultant (despite his abysmal forecasting record) and to be the first recipient of an award, the Schlesinger Medal for Energy Security, named after a man whose views on the future of oil are very much the opposite of Yergin's.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.